Clearwater Plumbers- January/ February 2020

6954 Boat Club Rd. Fort Worth, TX 76179 817-296-0670

PRST STD US POSTAGE PAID BOISE, ID PERMIT 411

ClearWater Plumbers

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I Brake for Good Deals

Cozy for the Winter

Who’s Your Plumber

Winterize Your Home

Simple Pancakes From Scratch

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I Brake for Good Deals

I Brake for Good Deals

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truck on the eBay platform, but the condition was not even close to the description, and there were no pictures of the bad. So, this auto shop/car lot owner and his Massachusetts version of “Deliverance” shop guys kept looking at my duffel bag like drooling dogs watching a man eating a steak. The owner and I negotiated back and forth about why the deal was valid or not valid. I finally figured out that these boys had been watching too many movies. They were thinking that my duffle bag was full of cash. I finally asked them, “You guys know that this bag is not full of 6,000 $1 bills, right?” I winked at them and said it was my clothes because I was planning to drive back to Texas. They looked at me, then looked at each other, and started laughing. Then, they went back to working on random vehicles in various stages of disarray. I don’t know if they were laughing at the fact that I had planned on driving the rust bucket to Texas or that I busted them on my 6,000 $1 bill theory, but it was nice to break the tension.

Then, of course, there are dumb guys that like hunting for “good deals” before realizing they have a plane to catch while driving a truck and trailer on a dirt parking lot covered with sharp metal shards everywhere. All of this was to turn a $27 purchase into $120 of scrap, in Waco. I did get a nice structural steel post, a big, heavy-duty cart, and a sweet vintage Pitney Bowes copy cart. But, it probably was not my best deal. The guys with the shopping carts :) had lower overhead, but I beat them hands down in the crazy/ mental contest that day. I have done worse though. About five years ago, I flew to a snowy Massachusetts to pick up a low mileage, all aluminum Hackney plumbing box van I “won” on eBay for $6,000. I sacrificed comfort for cheap fare and connected in three airports on the way. Well, when I got there, I found out that the transmission was possessed by the devil, the box hinges were sagging, and every square inch of the frame was flaking apart in big rusty scabs from all the road salt. There was no life left in that truck. All I had was a green duffel bag with some clothes and toiletries because I had planned on driving my smoking deal of a plumbing truck back to Texas and sleeping in the back on the way through the Smokey Mountains. I technically committed to buying this

I bet I spent $650 and a day of my life to go look at a rusty van in Massachusetts, and I really don’t like to fly. What a deal, Jeff!

– Jeff

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ClearWater Plumbers | 817-296-0670 | clearwaterplumber.com

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